[I've dated this article 27th May 2006 - the date of the training camp but wrote this article 22 August 2020. I'll be publishing content covering the 2006 Junior World Champs in this way to keep the posts in chronological order.]
For me, I think this is where my interest in photographing Taekwon-do started. My son Jeremy Hanna was keen to trial for the 2006 Junior World Champs in Honduras. I'd taken a few photos at an Auckland training session. Then we headed down to Taupo for a weekend training camp. There isn't a lot for a parent to do at these camps and having had a life long passion for photography that's what I did. I had Canon's first consumer Digital SLR Camera, the Canon EOS 300D with a couple of very slow lenses. The images were back then a large 5.8 megapixels in size!
It was a start of several new and exciting chapters in my life...
Jeremy was extremely keen on competing in Taekwon-do. It had been a passion for a few years and as a first dan black belt and at 15 he was old enough to compete.
I started to get to know instructors, parents and students, many of which would become good friends over the next few years.
People appreciated the photos I took... which spurred me on to get in closer, and to pursue capturing great images of the sport with passion.
When we went to Honduras, I just went along as a parent and continued to take photos. Mr Gwyn Brown was the official ITFNZ reporter and I transferred images back to NZ to accompany his articles. The feedback and appreciation from the Taekwon-do community following us back home again spurred me on.
Together with Jeremy, and Mark as the official ITFNZ reporter/photographer for Quebec in 2007, we traveled the world competing, and photographing and reporting on the New Zealand team for the next few years starting with Honduras for the 2006 Junior Worlds (via time in LA and Houston); Quebec, Canada for the 2007 Worlds; World Cup in Reva del Garda, Italy in 2008 (with time in London, Rome and afterwards in Poland); Mar del Plata, Argentina for the 2009 Worlds where Jeremy won gold for junior 3rd dan patterns (with time in Buenos Aires); Wellington for the 2011 Worlds where Jeremy won gold in senior 3rd dan patterns - the highlight of his competing career and when he retired from Taekwon-do after 10 years of intensive training. I went on to cover the 2013 World Champs Spain in 2013 but found my interest less intense without a family member competing.
So, this is where it started. Here are the best images I captured at this camp...